When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employment, and shall come And make their bed with thee. train As the long Of ages glide away, the sons of men, The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. -Bryant. THE AMERICAN FLAG. When Freedom, from her mountain height, She tore the azure robe of night, Majestic mor arch of the cloud! Who rear's aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest trumpings loud And see the lightning lances driven, When strive the warriors of the storm.. And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given To guard the banner of the free; To hover in the sulphur smoke, To ward away the battle-stroke; And bid its blending shine afar, Like rainbows on the clouds of war, The harbingers of victory! Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly, Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall, And cowering foes shall shrink beneath Flag of the seas! on ocean wave Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendors fly Flag of the free heart's hope and home, And all thy hues were born in heaven. Where breathes the foe but falls before us, Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will iittle note, nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. -President Lincoln. |